Strange looking (fox).

[Brig]

Just curious as to what this beast might have been. My wife and I were both raised in West Virginia, USA. As most of the state is rural , country, forest and mountainous we are well acquainted with the local wildlife in Ohio as well. On two encounters we observed, up close and personal, two very unusual creatures.

We were driving on a narrow back dirt road in Guernsey county, Ohio, when a very sleek, long necked (fox?) came loping down the road. I say loping because its hind legs were longer that the front, making its tail section stand higher than the front. It had a very foxlike head and it was colored like the typical red fox. We both saw it; our descriptions of it are the same I've never seen anything like it since. Just curious.

The second sighting of a strange animal occurred in Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. About once a week, my wife, my llttle dog, and I take a tour of the park. Up until very recently the mule and whitetail deer are so familiar with people that they would walk right up to people for a hand out. A few years ago the park administration decided that wasn't a great idea so someway they have made the deer somewhat skittish, They are still visible in the park but no longer come up real close. We were on one of our deer sighting tours and driving very slowly on a back park road when a cat (definitely not your typical housecat) ran hallway across the road, stopped, looked us over and then resumed crossing the road and disappeared into the brush. We got one fine look at that rascal. I never saw a wildcat like it. From the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail it was as long as the two lane road is wide. It looked like a small mountain lion in general shape. It was spotted, but the spots were not distinct, they were fuzzy at the edges not a distinct spot like a leopard. Half of it length was tail. A long tail, also spotted, and ending with a rounded bulb-like end.

I reported that sighting to the rangers station and they had to see where the sighting took place. They said some sightseers in a boat had a seen a strangely spotted large cat near the Old Stone House which sits next to the lake. So at least that one was seen by more than just the wife and I. So even in relatively domesticated areas it is still possible to see the mysterious crypto. The rangers had no idea what sort of cat it might be.

 

[oldrover]

It sounds as though the cat you saw may have been some sort of escaped/released exotic. What species, if that's what it was, is unlikely to be resolved. Could you clear up the size though. You say that "From the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail it was as long as the two lane road is wide". Now, based on the width of a two lane road here that'd be huge. But you say it looked like a small mountain lion.

That isn't being picky. An idea of size might help us narrow it down a bit. Also how far away it was, how long the sighting, the time of day, lighting etc.

 

[lordmongrove]

An escaped exotic such as a maned wolf for the former... https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/355714070539759379/

 

[Brig]

Problem is that two lane road is all I had to measure it against. Imagine a small two lane road in a state park. Room to pass,, just barely. Figure the width od a small care and double it.

 

[Monstrosa]

it could have been a jaguar, they have been moving north again.

 

[oldrover]

It isn't easy to judge things, and as you say, it's all you had to measure it by. Over here the kind of back lanes are as often s not single track, but given that the width of a car these days is around the six foot mark, it shows you just how wide even one of those would be. So a two lane road would be at least ten to twelve foot. Which would put the cat into the extreme upper size range for a big cat.

 

[Brig]

It sounds as though the cat you saw may have been some sort of escaped/released exotic. What species, if that's what it was, is unlikely to be resolved. Could you clear up the size though. You say that "From the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail it was as long as the two lane road is wide". Now, based on the width of a two lane road here that'd be huge. But you say it looked like a small mountain lion.

That isn't being picky. An idea of size might help us narrow it down a bit. Also how far away it was, how long the sighting, the time of day, lighting etc.

Sorry about that. You are right, of course. The roads in the park are just wide enough for two normal cars to pass without peeling each others paint. Half of the cats length was in its tail. Because it crossed just feet from the front of our car and actually stopped to look us over made the comparison with the road easy. It was not a large cat. Far larger than the typical house cat, less than half the volume of a mountain lion. Not built like the wildcat, but like a cougar in shape.

 

[EnolaGaia]

This excerpt from a February 2015 article suggests you might have seen a cougar ...

The other predator moving into Ohio, on the lips and minds of every solo hiker, is the cougar or mountain lion.

Prange doesn’t believe we have resident cougars in Ohio yet. But they are coming.

“An Ohio wildlife officer saw a cougar last year on a bike path,” Prange says. “There was just a mountain lion killed in Kentucky, 70 miles from Cincinnati. So I think we’ll start having sightings over the next few years, like the states to the west of us. Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky – the cougars have been moving eastward for a while.”

A lot of people swear cougars are already here, living in the forests of Southern Ohio, but none have yet shown up on wildlife cameras or left any physical evidence that would be required for a confirmed sighting by the Cougar Network, a research organization tracking the eastward movement of mountain lions. ...

SOURCE: http://beltmag.com/is-ohio-ready-for-a-big-predator-comeback/

... And the Mountain Lion Foundation (www.mountainlion.org) noted alleged but unconfirmed cougar sightings in Ohio back around 2010 / 2011.

 

[Brig]

The point is that cougars are not spotted. This animal had spots. The spots were larger than you see on the leopard and not as well defined. They were definitely spots, not patches like you see on dogs or house cats. That is an interesting article. I wonder if a cougar could cross with something with spots?

 

[OneWingedBird]

The description of the spots sounds a lot like an adult bengal - 'show quality' bengals usually have rosettes, 'pet quality' have spots which it isn't immediately obvious are broken up rosettes, they're very vivid when kittens, a bit fuzzier as adults.

Adult size is usually larger than a domestic though not by a lot, maybe a bit bigger again if it was something like an escaped stud male, also a very 'long' breed so could have seemed disproportionatly larger from some angles.

No idea if one could breed with any indiginous type of wildcat or small big cat to produce a further hybrid. Seems vguely plausible though.

 

[oldrover]

Brig, one thing occurs to me is the apparent proximity of Zanesville to the park where you saw the animal. It looks to be no more than about 25KM. So you saw what you saw less than a day's walk away from the site of the Muskingham County Animal Farm. So, if your sighting happened sometime after 9/10/11 then it's at least possible that it may be connected to the release.

A quick check on line doesn't seem to bring up any likely candidate species from the list of animals released. But then again, I'm not sure if was the type of operation that kept particularly accurate records.

In any case, another possible factor is that the year after the massacre your state legislature passed the Ohio Dangerous Wild Animals Act. Over here after our 1976 act was passed there were plenty of rumours that people released their exotics into the countryside, rather than facing the difficulty and expense of complying with the new regulations.

So, might be connected, but perhaps the time frame is wrong, and you saw the animal before the Zanesville tragedy ever happened.

 

[oldrover]

Just some thoughts on the species front.

As we've discussed size seems to be a bit uncertain. As it would be when suddenly seeing something unexpected. But the rest of your description seems to fit a few possibles.

Firstly as OneWingedBird says, the Bengal cat (which I'd never heard of before). This has to be high on the list, there are plenty of them for sale in Ohio.

As far I'm aware, size wise they're about the same as any other domestic cat. Also the tail to body proportion doesn't match.

Another possible, but only of course worth considering in terms of the zoo release, or possible dumping since the legislation change. Is the marbled cat.

Very long tail, big blotchy rosettes. And size wise closer to the mark at up to 46". Rare Asian species and one highly unlikely to be wandering the Ohio countryside.

Another possibility is a similar looking species, the margay.

At least this one is more local being a South and Central American species. Again though, well out of its range in the Midwest, and rare so very unlikely to be the animal you saw. But size matches fairly well, as does the length of the tail.

 

[Brig]

Thanks. It's a thought. If I could see a picture of the cat you are describing perhaps that would settle the matter. Be interesting to know if it is still in the park. Salt Fork State park is large and is surrounded by lightly settled forests. Great pictures, thanks. They don't quite measure up to what I saw. But if the cat my wife and I witnessed was the result of a cross between a tawny animal and say the Bengal cat; we might be on to something. Our cat had fewer spots than the Bengal and the spots were softer, less distinct at the edges. I guess the time period would be about correct.